#if you read all things shining lmk what you think...i'm afraid to re-read it in case it's bad

[leguin]

hey helen! i hate to ask for something so. embarrassing. but you're the person whose taste i trust most so here i am. do you have any good spn fics? esp moody ones (but that don't leave you feeling like shit :D) tysm <3

well 1) thank you, and 2) you may change your mind re: taste after reading some fics on this list. full disclosure: i have read a grand total of one spn fic since ~2014, so i’m pulling from what i had bookmarked way back then, and while i will vouch for some of the fics here, i put some others on just because i have vaguely fond memories of them. tbh this kind of turned into me just reminiscing about the state of spn fics between 2010 and 2014. anyway. hope you enjoy some of these!

heirloom by tibbins - i rec’d this pretty recently, but it’s worth putting on here for anyone who missed it. set in s14, it’s a confrontation between dean and john that’ll put you through the wringer. 12k.

these, our bodies, possessed by light by secretlytodream - a fanvid, not a fic, but i’ll always take an opportunity to rec it. very sad. fantastic audio editing.

all things shining by askance and standbyme - cross your palms with stars for love! oh man. this is the main story in an extended au known (to me, anyway) as the star & the catfish. it was a big deal (to me). there was a lot of poetry. there was a book of short stories and scripture that i own a physical copy of. i have absolutely no idea if it holds up, but it absolutely blew me away at the time. stylistically and thematically sort of reminiscent of marilynne robinson’s books, with some little, big-esque magical elements. 141k.

the inexhaustible silence of houses by askance - a horror story. it’s been 8 years and i still listen to the soundtrack regularly. this one really left an impression on me, and, like all things shining, ended up shaping how i think about writing fiction today. that being said, i don’t know if it holds up - but i suspect it does. 31k.

savage land by liralen - getting into some good old tropey ‘everything’s fucked up’ territory here. (technically sam/dean, but there’s only one line that goes in that direction). 5k.

an exercise in ‘worthless’ by beastofthesky - according to my blog, the other Big Fic of 2012 along with isoh. it’s a tattooist/college au, and big on the rom-com misunderstandings iirc. 26k.

look in my tormented eye by darkmagess - honestly i remember nothing about this fic and its sequels, but it does tick the moody box and i had it bookmarked, so on it goes. 51k.

family business by luchia - an au where the winchesters are in the mob, and dean and cas meet at a soup kitchen where dean is doing community service for mob-related crimes. one of my favorites, back in the day. 35k.

the girlfriend experience by rageprufrock - deeply quotable, disturbingly explicit. a story about brojobs at the end of the world, and dean having debilitating intimacy issues. 15k.

jump the track by alysian_fields - a high school au. i don’t remember the details of this at all, but mal sent it to me and i went ‘oooof jump the track’ so it clearly left a mark. 83k.

start quoting shakespeare and we’re done by pyrebi - i used to watch what’s your number? a lot in the early 2010s. this fic has nothing to do with the movie, but just so we’re clear about the amount of rom-com tropes i was into. anyway, this is a librarian au, and it’s a rom-com, and i was very fond of it. 15k.